#48 - How We Doubled Our Instagram Story Views in 8 Days

If your Instagram Story views have been looking a little tragic lately… same. 😂 We were averaging just 60–100 views on an account with nearly 5,500 followers. And after a whole lot of posting (sometimes 25+ Story slides in a day 👀), we decided to stop throwing content at the wall and actually test a strategy. Eight days later, we doubled our Instagram Story views. Our new range? Roughly 120–200 views on most days. And the most surprising part? We started posting _less_. In this solo episode, we're sharing the Instagram Stories strategy we tested, what our analytics showed us, and why getting more views isn't just about the numbers. For creative service providers, Stories can be one of the best places to deepen relationships, start conversations, and turn warm followers into potential clients. In this episode, we're talking about: Why we cut back from 8–25+ Story slides a day to just 1–5 How we identified our most engaging Instagram Stories (and started repeating what worked) Why we're testing fewer link stickers and more Story replies and DMs What changed when we stopped automatically resharing feed posts to Stories How Threads, tagging people, and genuine engagement may help bring viewers back Why we started batching Stories and using more photos with text instead of long talking-to-camera videos Our “Story Flow” approach to making Stories feel like a cohesive experience—not a random content dump How we used Stories to talk about a new offer and sign three clients in 24 hours And we're not just looking at views. We're paying attention to Story retention, too. With fewer, more intentional slides, we're now seeing about 70% of viewers make it from the first Story to the last. Three things to try on your own account: First, open your Story archive and find the posts that got the most replies and likes. What do they have in common? Next, pick ONE action you want someone to take after watching: reply, visit your profile, learn about an offer, or start a conversation. Then build a simple Story Flow around that action. Fewer slides, more intention. You don't need to make Instagram another full-time job. One important note: these are observations from our own account, not secret rules about the Instagram algorithm. We changed multiple things during this experiment, so we can't isolate exactly what caused the jump. Test what makes sense for your audience. Want a 30 Day Content Plan for your own Instagram? We're offering Instagram strategy calls where we'll audit your account, look at what's working, identify opportunities to improve engagement, and build a 30 Day Content Plan around your business goals. Because the goal isn't just more Story views—it's content that warms up the right buyers and leads to sales. Send us a DM on Instagram and ask about the 30 Day Content Plan. We'll send you the details:   / joandlyndon   Come hang out with The Sustainable Creator for more practical marketing and business strategy for creatives:   / thesustainablecreator   And if you try any of these Instagram Story strategies, DM us and tell us what worked. We love a good experiment!